Technical Field
This disclosure relates to a drawer unit, and to an image forming apparatus using the drawer unit.
Description of the Related Art
There is an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, which includes a drawer unit including a housing and a drawer detachably attachable to the housing. The drawer includes one or more of constituent parts used for forming a toner image on a surface of a recording medium sheet and fixing the toner image on the recording medium sheet. When the recording medium sheet jams in an image forming operation or when maintenance of the constituent parts is performed, inserting and drawing of the drawer are performed.
In such an image forming apparatus, when the force (hereinafter referred to as drawing force) needed for drawing the drawer from the housing of the image forming apparatus is large, the drawing operation is a burden to a powerless user. There is a proposal for a drawer unit which is not a drawer of image forming apparatus and which includes a main drawer and an inner drawer connected with the main drawer, wherein the total drawing force needed for drawing the main and inner drawers is reduced. Specifically, in this drawer unit, the drawing force needed for drawing one of the drawers located at a position distant from the handle of the drawers is set to be smaller than that needed for the other drawer closer to the handle to reduce the total drawing force.
In addition, there is a proposal for a drawer equipped with a push-lock mechanism, which includes a spring, wherein, when the drawer is inserted, the spring is compressed while locking the drawer. In order to draw the locked drawer, the drawer is slightly pushed to unlock the push-lock mechanism. In this case, the drawer is pushed in the drawing direction by the resilience of the spring.